Survivor Fiji: week 7

A jury is made
Up of twelve good men and true;
And, it seems, Rocky.

Week seven, and still not even a hint of romance. Normally by now one of the buffed young guys would have been helping one of the blonde young girls stay warm at night by snuggling up to her in the shelter. The only three women left are all on the same tribe and none of them are blonde. Also the only buffed young guy on that tribe is Boo, and they all seem to value their dignity too much to go there.

The other tribe does have Lisi, who has sort of dirty yellow hair (where her last home bleach job grew out) and is young, and she is surrounded by buffed young guys. Trouble is she’s just as buffed as they are, as evidenced by the ease with which she carried three pint glasses of beer during the reward challenge. More on that later.

Actually there almost was some romance when Edguardo sat next to Rocky on a log and tried to talk strategy. The answer to Edguardo’s question "What do you think?" was answered "I think you should [expletive and pixelation of Rocky’s potty mouth] push over unless you want to make out with me." No romance there.

No, the real romance this week was at Moto’s camp. Earl once again got the rest of the tribe away so that Yau-Man could look for the immunity idol. Digging with a pick axe and shovel that were just laying around the Moto camp was much easier than trying to do it at the Ravu camp with just a machete, and he soon had a rather cute turtle necklace in his hands. He was a bit excited. Actually he was very excited. He started kissing the turtle and didn’t stop. He may have actually licked it. Not a good look.

In his excitement he also slipped from talking about the immunity idol in the plural form ‘we’ (which featured so heavily in his negotiations with Earl) into the singular form ‘me’ (for example, "This looks so good on me!") Their plan for sharing the idol is that if they hear Earl is about to be voted out he gets it, and if it’s Yau-Man’s scrawny neck on the chopping block he keeps it. Sounds fair. I just hope they put all this in writing because I really can’t see either of them wanting to share when the going gets tough and a million dollars is at stake.

Yau-Man is still a winner in my book, though. The reward challenge involved throwing flaming balls at targets. For once teams had to set a flag on fire instead of lighting a fire to raise a flag. Gee, where do they keep coming up with all these totally original ideas?

The buffed young men of Moto all laughed when it was Yau-Man’s turn. Mookie was especially cruel in him imitation of Yau-Man’s wobbly throwing arm. He might want to remember that Yau-Man is smart and knows his physics, as proven on day one when all the brawn in the camp couldn’t open a sealed timber box by hitting it with heavy things, while Yau-Man casually dropped it on its corner – the weakest point - and smashed it open. Naturally Yau-Man’s shot landed in just the right spot and Mookie ended up looking stupid and embarrassed. Mookie could easily be the Ralph Macchio to Yau-Man’s Mr Miyagi if he were more open to learning from little old smart guys.

Mookie was happy again when Ravu finally achieved their first win for the season. Reward was a trip to a games arcade on a nearby island with all the beer and hot dogs they could eat. The Kava Bowl (that’s seriously one of the best business names I’ve seen in ages) was true to its promise and featured intoxicating substances and ten pin bowling among other delights such as Foosball, billiards, video golf, unlimited hot dogs and the ultimate reward luxury of a nice clean china toilet to throw up in.

With his camp’s idol already located, Earl didn’t even bother reading the next location clue when he got to Exile Island. It was his third trip there so he figures it’s now his, and he spent the time productively designing a logo for his new tourism resort called Earl Island (sorry, that’s nowhere near is good as The Kava Bowl). Earl works in advertising so I was expecting a slightly more integrated above-the-line campaign than just a single televised product placement and no other media presence. At the very least I thought he’d avoid an obvious mistake like forgetting to give the website address or the reservations phone number.

Yau-Man also spent a productive afternoon creating a decoy immunity idol out of half a coconut and some yellow paint before burying it where the clues say to look. If Boo gets sent to Exile Island and manages to a) read the clues and b) work out what they mean, he might go digging and find it. I’m singling out Boo because he’s the only one in that tribe stupid enough to fall for it.

I should probably just stop for a second here and confess that Boo isn’t stupid just because he can’t tell left from right. Some of the worst navigational mistakes in my marriage have occurred because I sometimes do the same thing. To my credit though, I’d have self-corrected if my darling hubby was screaming "No, LEFT! LEFT! LEFT! THE OTHER LEFT!"

To explain why left and right is important you need to know that this week’s immunity challenge involved blindfolded contestants making their way across a course to smash pinatas (charmingly made out of a human skulls) and retrieve the obligatory puzzle pieces, guided by a team mate yelling out directions. Michelle did an excellent job calling for Moto - even falling off the look-out tower in her excitement, all of which was brilliantly captured on camera - until it was Boo’s turn. She quite possibly wanted to cave his skull in with the traditional Fijian war club when her repeated screams of "LEFT! The other way! Your left!" were ignored.

She was so hoarse by the time he got it right (pardon the pun) that Yau-Man could hardly hear her when it was his turn. Boo told her to swap out, got to the top of the look-out platform and only then remembered that he was blind for some reason that was never explained (although as I said, there’s been no romance - of any kind - this season). Boo couldn't even see Yau-Man let alone tell him where to go. Now do you forgive me for being so harsh on him?

I’ve perhaps been a little bit harsh on Lisi, too. After losing the immunity challenge for the seventh week in a row the mood at Ravu was low. Rocky did his usual temper tantrum. Alex and Edguardo did the math and figured that with the merge and the switch to individual immunity challenges so close, loyalty is more valuable than physical strength. They decided to keep Lisi since she still believes her original alliance is solid and is therefore easy to manipulate (wow, she must have been embarrassed sitting home these last few weeks and learning what those boys said about her behind her back!) They even manipulated her into telling them where the Ravu immunity idol is buried. And she fell for it!

Dreamz announced that he knowz Rocky and knowz that he don’t really meanz what he sayz an all that. Dreamz also believez that Rocky knowz that hiz head'z on the choppin block tonight. Oh Dreamz, you iz sadly mistaken and you do not know Rocky at all if you honestly believe that.

Lisi was also sadly mistaken. As Jeff read her name out on the first vote she did a big fake-terrified nail-biting pantomime that wasn’t nearly as funny as she probably thought it was. The stunned look on her face as the second vote was read out, again featuring her name, was much funnier than she could have ever intended.

Unfortunately she had a good reason to look smug by the end when Rocky was announced as the seventh person voted off and the first member of the jury. She wouldn’t look so smug if she knew that her description of having had a ‘spiritual enlightenment’ on Exile Island was accessorised in the editing suite by a ‘bo-ing!!’ comedy sound effect straight out of America’s Funniest Home Video. She’s going to look like an even bigger fool next week. More on that later...